Black Ops 2: Treyarch Teases New Prestige and Challenge Systems

Earning Prestige levels in Call of Duty has long been a staple of the series. For those not in the know, players who level up to the maximum level (55) can choose to Prestige, and lose all of their unlocks in the process and restart their challenges all over again. The ability to Prestige exists mainly for hardcore players intent on challenging themselves.

Treyarch game design director David Vonderhaar stated today that the studio plans to reveal the prestige and challenge design in “a few weeks”. He added that any ideas players might have may be wrong as the overhauled system is “not what you think.”

Vonderhaar says that the studio will be “trying something different this game,” and added that they are intent on “challenging some long-held assumptions about how these systems work.”

In addition to revealing that the challenge system will be getting a complete overhaul, Vonderhaar says that huge improvements will be coming for both casual and hardcore Theater fans of the Call of Duty series, meaning that hardcore mode may involve a lot more than simply taking off the reticle.

Until Black Ops 2 is released on November 13, we’ll just have to tide ourselves over with some other games. It'll be out on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.